...that smells of snickerdoodle cookies baking in the oven. In that kitchen are enormous owls on the blue wallpaper that stare at me while I eat my lunch seated at the round, wrought iron kitchen table. There is a plate of cheese, crackers, slices of ham, green olives stuffed with pimentos. I can have gingerale or birch beer in my amber colored glass.
Music is playing on a console record player. Often, it is Bobby Vinton, Captain and Tenille or Frank Sinatra. Sometimes it is a choir singing Latin hymns. There is a small dog with a name like Snoopy, Cookie or Rascal living in the house. This dog sits on the furniture with me and no one shoos her away. The "davenport" is covered with afghans that do not match. There are no decorating magazines or fashion catalogs. Martha Stewart does not belong here but no one seems to mind.
There is a chair where a woman sits wearing a white nurse's dress. She just got off working her shift. Her grey curls peep from beneath her white paper cap, pinned to her head with bobby pins. She has a mole where her nose meets her cheek and her skin is soft and smooth.
She puts her feet up on the ottoman that her father carved when she was a little girl and asks me to untie her shoes so her feet can "breathe". I rub peppermint cream on her aching heels and she closes her eyes for a few minutes. After a while, she asks if I'd like to go outside in the yard.
The house is surrounded by flower beds full of perennials. There are bees and hummingbirds buzzing in and out of bee balm, goosenecks, daisies, foxglove and lupine. There are strawberries, raspberries and black berries ripening, ready to be made into jam. I sit with the woman in green canvas lawn chairs and watch the birds. She points out all of the names of the birds and flowers and I barely listen though the names seep into my being without my noticing, hiding in the recesses of my mind until I need them years later.
She puts the sprinkler on to cool off. We run through the spray together, hopping over clover and dandelions that grow in the grass. Afterwards, we lay on the warm driveway on a Magilla Gorilla towel and dry off. She brings out a glass of lemonade for both of us and some of the snickerdoodle cookies.
In the evening, we eat spaetzles and kielbasi and she insists I did not eat enough. "Have some more", she tells me. So I do.
After dinner, we dance polkas around the living room together while the dog barks in excitement. Later, she turns on the evening news and Johnny Carson. We watch the station sign off and sing the National Anthem together before the screen turns fuzzy.
We snuggle up in her double bed, my head resting on a pink velvet pillow. "Good night, Madeline", she says. "I'm not Madeline!", I say. "Oh, that's right! Goodnight Penelope!", she says. "I'm not Penelope!", I say. "Well, who are you then?" and I know she is smiling even though it is dark. "I'm Becky, Grandma!" "Oh yes, my Becky. Good night, my Becky."
Goodnight Grandma. I miss you.
Happy Birthday
